With my strength rebounding to near-normal levels, I decided to embark on one of the big garden projects that has been lingering on my to-do list for six months --- moving the blueberries.

Our original blueberry patch is located quite a distance uphill from the trailer, but that was the only spot where I could fit so many plants. Unfortunately, all of the rabbiteyes died back during a particularly cold winter, so I was left with three northern highbush blueberries plus two gooseberry bushes spread out across a rather tremendous patch. The result was a weed epidemic when I didn't have the energy to keep track of a large area, only a very small percentage of which was actually bearing fruit.

Rather than filling in the gaps, I decided to contract our garden back closer to our trailer. So I wheeled six barrows of acidified topsoil down to make a spot for the blueberries, then dug everyone up and moved them in.

The transplants will likely sulk through 2017. But I have a feeling we'll actually end up with a lot more fruit soon after due to the sunnier location and the dramatically higher likelihood they'll be weeded and mulched. Plus, with only a few steps between door and berries, we're far more likely to enjoy small harvests rather than leaving them for the birds.

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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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